The process by which scientists, collectively
and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable,
consistent, and non-arbitrary) representation of the world.
The scientific method has four steps:
1) Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2) Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics,
the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a
mathematical relation.
3) Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena,
or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4) Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several
independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded
as a theory or law of nature. If the experiments do not bear out the
hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified. What is key in the
description of the scientific method just given is the predictive
power (the ability to get more out of the theory than you put in)
of the hypothesis or theory, as tested by experiment. It
is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only
disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a
new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory
(Frank L. H. Wolfs, University of Rochester).

A compact format for writing very large or very small numbers.
Numbers are made up of three parts: the coefficient, the base and the exponent.
For example 3.58 x 104 is the scientific notation for 35,800.